White Liar
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: We tell ourselves that we'd never lie to the people we love most, but sometimes, it's necessary to spare them from the painful truth.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Don't own Degrassi, but I do own the OCs that I sprinkle in every now and then. James Van Zandt happens to be one of them. Don't own him? Don't use him. **

Everyone Lies

_1. Spinner/Emma_

Once, over a quiet breakfast table on a lulling Sunday morning, Emma had asked him absentmindedly if the whole Jimmy/Rick situation still scared him, shamed him, bothered him. He wasn't sure what had brought it on, but he had shrugged and told her that while it would always be with him for the rest of his life, he was over it. It had happened so long ago- he was a different person than that irresponsible, reckless, selfish little boy trying to be a man, and Jimmy was still his closest friend in the world. He had moved on.

Later that night, as he lay in bed beside a sleeping Emma, unable to shut his eyes even though it was four o'clock in the morning and he had to get up for work in three hours, he stared at the ceiling and tried to think of any other time he had lied to his wife.

He couldn't think of one, really. They had always been so honest with each other throughout their entire marriage. It was part of the reason they had stayed together, despite everyone's beliefs that they had made a huge mistake and would get divorced before the first year.

Still, he had lied to her, and he hoped that he had covered his tracks well. Even his own wife didn't need to know all of his secrets.

_2. Eli/Clare _

The day after the first time he made love to Clare, she had asked him if he had been thinking of Julia. He looked at her, and she was giving him that blazing look that she had, which he knew meant that she wanted total honesty- no smirks, no witty remarks, no backtalk. Just the straight-up truth, no bullshit attached.

Even if it hurt.

Looking straight into her blue eyes, he told her no.

She gazed back into his green eyes, and he could tell that she didn't believe him. "I won't be mad, Eli," she whispered. "I wouldn't be offended if you were."

"Yes, you would." She opened her mouth to speak when he cut her off. "Of course you would be, Clare. Don't lie about it."

"Okay," she relented. "It would hurt. But I have to know. Because if this is what it means to have this kind of relationship with you…" she twisted his ring, the one he had given her the night before, around her finger. "I can't be with you."

He reached out and touched her face, cupping it in his hand. Gently, he leaned in for a chaste kiss on the lips, then to her forehead.

"I know that it sucks for you to have to think about her," he said. "But Clare, trust me- last night wasn't about her. It was about you. I would never have done it if it hadn't been. It's not fair to you."

Clare had kissed him back, and this time when he looked into her eyes, he could tell that she really believed him.

So why would he ever say anything that would make her think otherwise?

What good would possibly come out of letting her know the truth?

He was only trying to protect her from getting hurt.

It was for the best.

_3. Liberty/Danny_

When her nephew was born, Danny called her long-distance at her apartment all the way in Seattle. When he told her the baby's name, he hesitated a bit, as if waiting for her to yell at him across continental lines.

He asked her if it would be a problem, if it would be too weird for her. "It's not like we named him after J.T., Lib," he explained. "It's just…that name seemed to fit. I don't know. It's hard to explain. But he seriously does look like a James. Like, you need to come and see this guy. I'll send you a picture, but you gotta see him in person. It's the name that fits him the most. It's like he named himself, really."

"I'm sure," she'd said.

There was silence again, and Liberty wondered if the line had gone dead. "Is it really going to hurt you that much?" he asked.

'Daniel, you're overestimating my level of sensitivity towards this topic. There are approximately 6 billion people on this earth. The chances of running into another James are very, very likely. In fact, I would say that statistically, it would be impossible to run into someone on this earth that isn't named James, in some form or another. So to answer your question: no. If his name is James, than it's James. Same as if it were Ryan or Matthew of John. It's just a name."

Danny had laughed. "Leave it to you to practically give me all but a forensic analysis," he said. "have you been practicing your closing arguments in the shower?"

Liberty rolled her eyes and was sure Danny could hear it over the phone. "Can you give him a kiss for me?"

"Definitely, but it will mean more coming from you."

"I'll see what I can do about how soon I can get up there."

"We'll be waiting."

"Good night, Daniel."

"I love you, sis."

Liberty paused. "I love you, too, Danny."

The line went dead, but Liberty hardly noticed. Instead, she thought about how she would be able to call her nephew by that name and convince herself that it didn't hurt, even though she was lying and just trying to make Danny happy because she loved him.

Then the operator's voice clicked in and startled her, reminding her that no matter how alone in your thoughts you might think you are, there is always someone listening in.

_4. Adam/Drew_

When Adam was thirteen, he had asked Drew if he minded that he was transgender.

At the time, Drew had looked at him like he was nuts. "Are you kidding me? Have you been talking to a different Drew Torres for the past nine years?"

"I'm serious," he'd asked, and there was a softness in his voice that Drew picked up on immediately. He was really, genuinely asking, and the insecurity of the question almost broke Drew.

So he told his brother no. He loved Adam more than anyone else in the world, and would love him regardless of whether or not he was a he or a she, brother or sister, boy or girl. And that was the truth, 100%. He'd never felt anything different.

But still.

When he came home from school the day after Fitz had beat the shit out of him in the school parking lot, the same day Owen had thrown Adam through a glass door, he watched as his brother undressed in his bedroom, unaware of Drew's presence lingering from an unseen spot in the hallway. He saw the bruises on Adam's milky, freckled skin, mottled black and blue and purple. Saw him wince as he took off the strap that bound his breasts, because it hurt to move his arms around his body like that. And when he slipped his shirt off and Drew saw those white lines that mapped his brother's bare flesh (which never got easier to see; no matter how often he accidentally stumbled upon them, he still felt nauseous every time), he couldn't help but think to himself that life would be so much easier for Adam if he wasn't like this.

Still, he kept his mouth shut. Adam needed all the people supporting him he could get, and that didn't always come from their parents. Drew- and Clare and Eli, too, he supposed- were really the people he counted on the most, and he'd never, ever let him down.

He loved him so much.

But it killed him that his brother's life was going to be so fucking hard.

And there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.


	2. Chapter 2

_5. Adam/Fiona_

The moment after he and Fiona shared their first kiss, she looked down at her lap and asked him, blushing, if that had been his first kiss ever.

He hesitated a moment, looking into her blue eyes, which kept darting from his face to her hands, wringing in her lap. He bit his lip and nodded, the tips of his ears turning red.

Fiona had glanced at him, her expression going from slightly saddened to pleased to outright delighted, her face flushing so Adam finally understood the cliché "tickled pink". She looked so happy in that moment that he clamped his mouth shut and didn't say another word, trying to lose himself in the moment- he had finally kissed Fiona, and all was, temporarily, right with the world.

So there was no way that he needed to sour the occasion with bringing her down.

His first kiss was with a guy. It was before he got to be Adam full-time. He was still trying to be Gracie, and he went to a party with Drew with the "cool kids" at school. They played Spin the Bottle, and he had to make out with Derek Hayslip. The worst thirty seconds of his life, and afterward he actually choked a little bit in the bathroom, blaming it on the cheap beer at the party when really it was just the grossness of having some guy's tongue jammed down his throat. He's never told anyone but Eli that little tidbit of information, and only after copious amounts of alcohol were imbibed by both parties, so he's not entirely sure Eli remembers it or not.

(Either way, he's never mentioned it, something Adam is infinitely grateful for, because had it not been for the liquor he would have carried that one to his grave)

_7. Anya/Sav_

Their relationship was full of lies. Everybody knew that, including them. He lied to his parents about her, and lied to her about them. He lied to her all the time, leading a double life so he could seem like both the perfect boyfriend and the perfect son in one fell stroke.

But no matter how much the little ones piled up, it had nothing to do with their greatest lie.

When she went to the limo with Sav that night, she knew what she was doing was wrong. She knew that she was lying to him, and he looked into her eyes and believed every word of it. And she did feel bad. But then she thought about all the times he had lied to her- or lied to others about her to cover his own behind. She thought about the girl waiting back inside the building for Sav, his "gorgeous, parent-approved accessory"- and she knew she could never match up. No matter what she did, she couldn't ever make him love her the same way that she loved him. So in that moment of overwhelming bitterness, resentment, and jealousy, she looked him in the eyes and told him the biggest lie: that she was doing this with him because she wanted to show how much she loved him.

Well, that was half-true.

She left out the part where she wanted to take something from him that Farrah would never touch. She wanted to possess him in the most primal way possible.

She regrets hurting Sav as much as she did, lying to him. She regrets not being strong enough to stand up for herself and tell him that she deserved better than his lies. But more than anything, she regrets that she let her own insecurity take over and turn her into someone that she didn't even recognize or like- someone willing to do whatever it took to get what she wanted, regardless of how many people she hurt to get it.

Much later, when time had healed some of the hurt that had avalanched on her after they broke up, she would think about the _other_ big lie she had told him, the one about the baby that never was. Sometimes, she wondered what would have happened if she had actually _gotten_ pregnant from that night (or had been, before the Morning After Pill had kicked in) and then thanked her lucky stars fate had been in her favor.

Because if it hadn't, the most real thing about them- their baby that might have been- would have been created in the moment of her greatest lie: that she had wanted to love him that night simply because she wanted to love him, and nothing more. And what kind of life was that for a child?

_8. Sav/Peter_

Peter was his best friend. And it wasn't just because Spin had gotten married and dropped off the face of the earth, and Danny had currently moved to New York for college and was no longer around to hang out with him. No, it was just simply that they _got_ each other, and seemed to think along the same wave length- even if Peter's tended to be a little erratic, on occasion. So even though he knew Pete was just across town while he was still stuck at Degrassi, he still missed seeing him in the halls and in the cafeteria, knowing that all of his best friends were just an arm's length instead of a text message away.

But there had been a time- last year, to be specific- when Sav hadn't really wanted Peter around at all, and had thought it preferable if the guy would just leave him alone, already. After Peter's meth scare, all of them- he, Danny, Jane- had all pulled away from Peter, scared and worried about what was happening to their best friend.

In the end, everything had been fine. Peter had managed to turn his life back around, staying clean and sober and getting back in on his friends' good graces.

So Sav couldn't understand what had possessed him to lie when Peter said to him that he was glad Sav had forgiven him for the whole meth episode.

Sav had stopped in his tracks for a moment and stared at Peter for a moment, unsure of what to say. Sure, he had agreed to let Peter back in the band. Sure, he had started hanging out with him again. But did he really forgive his best friend for the mistake he'd made?

Sav knew that people made mistakes and nobody was perfect- hell, he'd be the biggest hypocrite alive if he said he never messed up.

Maybe it had something to do with how sheltered he was bringing up, but he was a fairly trusting guy, and over and over again, it seemed as if people- usually the ones he trusted the most- just took the opportunity to walk over that- Anya, Holly J, and Peter. But something about Peter's downfall to drugs had shaken Sav to his core, and really upset him in a way that he could not (nor would) ever explain to Peter.

When Peter had broached the topic, all Sav could think of was that cold winter night after the Beach Bash, when the four of them- he, Danny, Riley, and Spin- had all piled into Spin's car and headed out on their frantic search for their missing friend. And then they'd found him, watched his face sag in relief as he saw them across the divided highway, had stepped into the middle of the road…

The whine of the oncoming truck, then the earth-shattering blast of a horn, dynamite going off in his ears, drowned out the horrified scream that had ripped through his throat the second he was sure that he was going to watch his best friend die right before his eyes.

They'd reached him, of course, and Peter had been fine. But while they drove back to the loft that night, Peter wrapped in Danny's coat and Riley's arms tightly around him, trying to generate some heat, Sav couldn't even bring himself to _look_ at Peter, and tried to keep himself from dissolving into a puddle on the floor at their feet.

He was more terrified than he had ever been in his life.

So he was pretty relieved when the rest of the band admitted to their wariness of trusting Pete again, and pretty much boycotted his efforts to be friends again until they were sure he was off the stuff for good.

He's proud of Peter for the person he's become, and is still loves hanging out with the guy. But part of him knows that he'll never forget the panic and sheer horror of that night, and he wonders if he'll ever really be able to forgive Peter for putting him through that.

_9. Jane/Spinner_

Having sex with Declan was…_fantastic_. It was wild and passionate and exciting and made her blood boil and all those other silly clichés and pop songs about "burning love".

He wasn't in love with her; she knew that much without a doubt. Well, that was alright- she wasn't in it for love. It was the thrill of the deed itself; the fact that someone so completely different from anyone she ever had known wanted her. Not _wanted to be with her;_ just _wanted_. Craved. Desired.

The bald fact of it made her shiver, a sharp and spicy sensation that was completely different from the well-worn, gentle smiles and kisses Spin gave her.

Right now, she was overwhelmed with emotional and personal commitments. With Declan, there was none of that. They could fuck as passionately as they wanted (and that was the word to use, as crude as it was- fuck. It wasn't making love, not by a long shot, because there would be no strings attached, no emotional consequences or fallout- or so she thought) and there was nothing that held either of them down. Declan was the very antithesis of everything that was overwhelming her in life, and she was a moth drawn to the fire.

And the need to feel that fire was so great that it temporarily drove all thoughts of Spinner out of her mind when she went to Declan's house that night.

And the time after that, and the time after that, and the time after that.


End file.
